Acts chapter number nine tonight, gonna start in verse number three. Stand with us tonight if you would. And I don't know if you normally do that here or not, but I don't want you to get weary in my preaching. I'm known to get long-winded, amen? That was a joke, laugh, thank you. Verse three, and as he journeyed, he came near Damascus. And suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembled in astonishment, saying, Lord, that's a good start. Said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. You can be seated tonight, Heavenly Father. As we come to you this evening, Lord, thankful for the opportunity to preach your word tonight, Jesus. We don't have a message, Lord, you know. We don't have a message without you tonight, Father. And God, I pray, Lord, humbly, Lord, Lord, begging tonight, asking God that you'd anoint us from the top of our head to the sole of our feet, Lord. We desire to be a servant, Lord, as well pleasing unto thee, Lord. Not to be seen of men, but to glorify God here in this place tonight, Lord. God, anything that would be of my, Lord, opinion, Lord, keep it under subjection, under submission tonight, Father. We just want to hear what thus saith the Lord. Give us unction tonight, Father, God, to function, Lord. Give us an anointing tonight, Father God, that we may breathe, oh Lord. God, upon this word tonight, Father Lord, I just pray, God, that you would just touch this place as we have felt from the moment we've pulled out of this parking lot, we have felt your spirit. And we ask, God, that you would touch the heart tonight of that one that sits in the house that is lost without you tonight, Lord Jesus. Before we can ever get saved, we've got to come to a place where we realize We're lost in the need of Christ tonight, Jesus. And I pray, God, that you would use the preaching of this word, Lord, to convict, Lord, to condemn, Lord, but most of all to call, Lord Jesus, to an altar of prayer, Lord, that change may take place. We trust in you, we love you, we're thankful for you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I want to preach for this just for a moment. I preach this message. It's been a long time ago at our church, but you need a place. You need a place, now you could title this Where's Your Damascus? You could title this What's Your Story? But as I study through Acts 9, Acts 22 and Acts 26, I can't find anywhere where Saul said anything about the month. The date, the year, the day of the week, or anything at all. But He knew there was a place that change took place. I fear that we've come to a time in our society where the only way that we know when we got saved was to look at our Bible and see when we wrote it down. I didn't ask you tonight what the date was. I didn't ask you what season it was. But you need a place where you can go and say right there's where the change took place. Right there's where God came in. Right there's where I know that the Lord made a change in me, because I tell you the truth tonight, if there's not been a change in your life, there's not been a Jesus in your life this evening. I got Bible to back it up, therefore if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, old things pass away and all things become new, amen? He said behold I'll do a new work, amen? God wants to do something new in your life this evening and I'm thankful that there's a place I can take you to. at Falling Rock Gospel Tabernacle at seven years old. Now the church ain't facing the same way, but it's the same altar. I could take you, I could probably dig back through time, find the teardrops that were prayed on that altar. You say, what month was it? I don't know. What day was it? I don't know. Was it evening? Yeah, it was evening. Because I went home and I slept like a baby. But I tell you, I can take you to a place that God made a change in me. We gotta get past religion, folks. We gotta — Paul was a religious man, we realize here in this story. Paul was headed, amen, on the road to Damascus. This was a commonly traveled place, a place between Jerusalem and Antioch, a place that was busily traveled, a place he had been to before, a place he had walked by — oh, that's good preaching, amen — a place he'd been many times before that, but there was something That changed that day, now maybe you've sat on these pews, in that seat, in this place, many times before and nothing has changed. Oh, but there was something that happened on that road. See, maybe up until right now, you've been running from God. Paul was running from God. You know how I know he's running from God? Here's how I know he's running from God. He was trying to do away with Jesus. He was trying to do away with the church. He was trying to do away with this movement of Christianity that was sweeping across the area. He was a religious man, a man of renown. And maybe up to this point in your life, you've done things because you had to. It was the right thing to do, we know. We come to the house of God, we ought to look like something. Amen, we ought to come with our best. We ought to come looking like we actually been to church. I realize that tonight, but so do religious folks. They know to carry the Bible. Amen, they know when to stand up, sit down, shake hands, hug, and leave, amen. Religion will clear that up for you, but I ain't talking about religious tonight. We're not looking for religion tonight. Maybe up to this point you say, I know I need to go on Sunday. I know, bless God, I'm gonna preach for the preacher tonight. I know I need to come on Sunday night, amen. I know I need to participate on Wednesday night. The prayer chain, prayer meeting revival, amen. The Sunday school picnic, Bible school, I'm hitting something tonight, amen. I know I need to be involved. That's not what I asked you tonight. Because we got a lot of Christians in this day and age, a lot of folks in this day and age that are involved in church, but they've never been saved. You say, how do you know that? Here's some things that I noticed in Paul's story. Here's some things that I realized in Paul's story, is that he had a place that he continued to go back to. You say, went back to it? Yeah, Acts 22. The Jews are questioning him about Jesus. He said, you don't understand, I was there. See, the devil will try to talk you out of salvation in your life. He'll try to talk you out of the Jesus being real, that the change taking place. He'll call it a charismatic movement. He'll call it emotion. He'll call it whatever you want. Amen. But I'm telling you, if you've been to the place, you can drag him right down to it and say, hey, Hey, I know it was right here that the change took place, that the burden of sin was lifted. From my life, I was there. He's standing before them Jews. He said, no, you don't understand. I was on my way to Damascus and a light shone in — I like this — in the way. It was in His way. You know what happens? Jesus will get in your way this evening. Oh, you got life planned out. We all got life planned out. I had my whole day planned out. Yeah, I was gonna get up at 6.30 this morning, like I always do. My boss is out of town, so I thought this would be a good evening or a good day to take it easy. And then you called. And then Dan — oh, I was excited about that. It's everything else that got paddled after that. She's 12 weeks pregnant today, and I thought, how's this morning sickness? We'll get through this. And then morning sickness turned into afternoon sickness, which turned into evening sickness. And she said, it ain't the baby. I've got a virus. And the phone started ringing and stuff started coming up, we got stuff that comes up in our life every day. And maybe you just, you just somehow, some way were able in your busy schedule to squeeze in church tonight because it was gonna make you feel good. Maybe Bubba it was because somebody's been haggling you all week and you thought well I'm just gonna check a box this evening and I'm gonna come to the house of God so they'll leave me alone. Let me tell you what happened to you this evening. God showed up in the middle of your way, in the middle of your plans, in the middle of this life that you had chosen to try to live. God has showed up to show you there's something better to this life than going day to day, paycheck to paycheck, misery to misery. There's something more to this life. Because that's what Paul found out, because Paul thought he really had something worth having. He told him, he said, look, you don't understand in 26, he told him, he said, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. I was in the strictest sect of the tribe of Benjamin. I grew up at the feet of Gamaliel. I was that guy, I know the law. He said, but all those things, he told him in Chronicles, I'm sorry, Corinthians. He said, those things which I count for gain, I now count those as loss. In fact, he said, I count them as all dung, amen. He said, they're of absolute no help to me at all in my life. Maybe you've got money. prestige, a title, a family, goods, all kinds of things that you can check a box for, but if you don't have Jesus, you are miserable this evening. Because Paul didn't realize how miserable he was until heaven opened up. And God spoke to him and maybe this evening you didn't realize how bad life was until you got a glimpse of how good it could be. I didn't, oh that's good Lord, amen. Maybe tonight you don't realize how good life could be but you got a glimpse of it this evening because you've heard some testimonies and heard some wonderful singing and been a part of something that's different than you've ever been in your life because we're not trying to get you to join this church this evening, we're trying to get you to get saved tonight. Because when we get to heaven, there's nobody checking the church registry, amen? Nobody checking to see if you paid your tithes, amen? But your name does have to be written in the Lamb's book of life that Josh was singing about. And if it's not there, you're missing out, friend. You need a place, you need a place, you need a place this evening. A place where you realize you're lost. See, we do a great job of telling folks how to get saved, but we don't do such a great job in this day and age of telling people they're lost. You gotta get lost before you can get saved. You have to get to a place where you realize you need a Savior. See, most of us, and I say most of us because if I were to ask for a show of hands tonight, how many of you tried to fix yourself before you came to the Lord? There'd be a bunch of hands go up. You say, what was that? That was you not realizing you were lost. That was just you looking for a better life, looking for a better way, knowing there was something. See, I preach this, well, I guess it would have been Wednesday night at our church. Man has always had religion. This need for a greater being, this need for a higher purpose, this belief that there was something somewhere out there, and they needed to figure out whether it was something internal or something in the universe, and they've always tried to search for something, but what they needed to be searching for was someone. Amen, because something didn't save me. Someone saved me this evening, and His name is Jesus tonight. And I needed to realize I didn't need something. I didn't need the church. I needed the Savior. He gave me the church to help me. Let's preach there for a minute. That's what this church is here for. It's to uplift you. It's to encourage you. It's to help you. Bless God, it's to correct you. Amen! Hey, it's here so that we, when we get out of line, that man of God can grab it. That's what I missed, that's what we missed during COVID. That's what — confrontational preaching. A man of God that would spit, spit and slobber and I mean scream at you for about 45 minutes and tell you how awful you are, amen, and how rotten you were and then shake your hand at the back door. That's what we missed. Why? Because we don't all get it right all the time. from the preacher to the pulpit to the pew. Amen. Every now and then, we need to sit amongst the pews. I call them the pew dwellers at our church. Those that dwell amongst the pews. Even the preacher needs to dwell amongst the pews every now and then and allow somebody to line him up on the Word of God and say, look, there are some things in my life that have to go. There are some things in my life that need trimmed up. Every now and then, we need to trim the wick. Every now and then, we need to get rid of some things in our life that are holding us back. He said, wherefore, seeing we are passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run this race with patience as set before us, looking unto Jesus, not the pastor, not the church, not the deacon born, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Why can we look for Him? He said, for the joy that was set before Him. He endured the cross and despised the shame and is set down. You realize, Bubba, Bubba realized that he's studying the tabernacle. The priest's job was never done. There was no seat in the tabernacle for the priest. The Bible says that Jesus has sat down on the right hand of the Father. He's making intercession for you and I. Why? Because whenever He hung on Calvary, amen, and said it is finished, the work was complete. And all you need to do tonight is just accept the work that was done at Calvary. He said, I don't understand the tabernacle. Well, that ain't what I asked you tonight. He said, I don't understand all that Old Testament stuff. I didn't take you to Genesis tonight. I'm asking you if you have a place, amen, in your life that you've met the Lord. Because if the answer's no, you're lost this evening. If the answer's no, if you have to think back, because we got too many in this day and age that mama called and mama said and the preacher came to my house, but we don't have a place. where we know that God touched our heart. Because it's not about religion, it's about a relationship. I'm gonna give you three quick things tonight. Somebody laugh, three quick things, and we're gonna go to the house tonight. You need a place where the load of sin got heavy. You need a place in your life where the load of sin, it got heavy. You know what happened to Paul? He said, how hard is it for thee to kick against the pricks? What they used to do when they would, when they would drive these, these animals, these oxen and things, amen, that, that pricks, that was what they would prick their heel with when they didn't want to pull the load anymore. When they wanted to quit and give up, they'd poke them to try to get them to move. And you know what they'd do? They'd kick at that. Why? It was uncomfortable, amen. You know what Paul was realizing? That the life he was living got a little bit uncomfortable. That, the Bible says there's pleasure in sin for a season, amen. Hey, there's pleasure in sin for a season, and that season in Paul's life had ended, and he realized life was uncomfortable for him. And the load of sin got heavy in his life. You say, how do you know that? Because when the light shined on him, he fell to the ground. What a picture of the person that comes to the altar under that weight, under that burden, under that load of sin. and had to lay it at the feet of Jesus. Because you don't get saved chewing bubble gum, amen, and demanding God to do anything. The Bible says that you gotta come to Him with a broken heart, a broken and a contrite spirit. That these, these are the things that God wants in our lives. These are the things that God requires in our life. That if we want to get, amen, He never said anything about an altar. He said a place. Paul was saved in the middle of the road. Amen. Stopped right what he was doing. I encourage you tonight, right now, in the middle of this message, if God's touching on your heart tonight, whether it's in your seat or on this altar, that you get down and ask God to forgive you of your sins and get things right with Him. I was talking to somebody Wednesday. I was explaining to him. the importance of salvation. And I said these words, because he said, I just — I need to get to church. I said, no sir, you don't need to get to church. You need to get down on your hands and knees right now and bet — you don't need three days to wait between now and Sunday for something to happen in your life for you to change your mind. If you're driving, pull over, amen? If you got the phone in your hand, lay it down. Get out of your truck, get out of your seat and get down on your knees and get things right with God because you just don't know when it's all gonna end. We don't know when our soul's gonna be required of us. We oftentimes talk about the coming of the Lord and all the — and I hope, amen, I hope with all of my heart that that's exactly the way that I go out of here, but that is not promised unto me. Brother Kevin thought he was gonna be here tonight, and he's not. There's a lot of plans that we make in this life, and — and folks, I'm telling you, there's a lot of things that we — we look at in the future. Now, we used to blame that on young people, but older people do it too. Amen. How many of y'all got retirement funds? Hey man, don't be shy about it, I got a retirement fund. I'm 35 years old working on my retirement, amen? Will I ever see it, Josh? Probably not. Amen, I'm not — I'm surely not hoping in Social Security, amen? I'll preach right there for a minute. Not at my age, I'm not. What are we planning for? If you got a retirement fund, what — I mean, hey, come on now, this is group participation, what are we planning for? The future! But how many of us are planning for the future? Because the Bible says this life is but a vapor. It's here today and gone tomorrow. I was, I was watching, uh, I don't know whose video it was, where it was at, I don't even, I don't even know. But I was listening to somebody talk about life. We've all got a birth date. And every one of us will have a death date. But life happens in the dash in between. That's what life is. Life is the dash in between. How long or how short that dash is, is not up to you. That is not up to you, but what is included in that dash, it is up to you. Whether you are not, you are saved tonight, that is your choice. That's your decision this evening. Conviction had set in in Paul's life. We got to get back to a place, I had went out last week, where Josh was holding revival out at Lone Oak. Man, conviction was thick, you could feel it, Josh. I could feel it in the text that Chad sent me about how Revival was going, I could feel conviction, and I'm saved. Amen. We gotta get to the place where conviction becomes real again. That's what we used to pray for, Don. We used to pray that conviction would fall on these folks that were lost and without Christ. That they would have some sleepless nights now. Amen, you better believe. If you're praying sleepless nights on somebody, you better be willing to lose some sleep with them. Amen, if you're praying for their bed to be hard, you better believe that God will make yours hard too. Amen, we need to pull for one another. Hey, he told him, hey, some making a difference, having compassion, pulling them. out of the fire that's our job we got to get old-time conviction you know what he found on that road to Damascus he found conviction and when conviction got real so did Paul Bible says he fell to his face and he made this state not only is Damascus or that place a place where the load got heavy it's a place where the Lord got lifted He fell to the ground and the first words out of His mouth was this, I've heard that before, amen. Hey, those disciples were listening, and there was a bunch of them. You know, he sent out 70 two by two, they were listening to Jesus. And he got talking about that blood, and how they needed to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood in John 6. And he said, and many, amen, walked no more with him. And he looked into the 12, and he said, will you also go away? And Peter, Simon Peter, said these words, Lord, To whom shall we go? You know what that word Lord means? Someone having rule or authority over you. Do you realize why a lot of us struggle in our Christian life? It's because the Lord is not ruling in our life. Jesus is not Lord of our life, He's a part of our life. We, we, we treat God as if He's the co-pilot of our life. God is not my co-pilot. The Lord is not sitting in the passenger — if the Lord had to ride with me every day, He'd get out. Amen. He's the captain of my vessel. He's the one I trust in every day. He's the one I lean on and depend on and rely on. He's not my co-pilot. He is the captain in my life. Damascus, that place in your life has got to be a place where you got down and you lifted Him up. Because if we don't put God in His rightful place, salvation is not coming. And what'd He say? He said, and if I, even I, I realize He was speaking of His death, the Bible even tells us that. But amen, I believe every single time that we uplift the name of Jesus, amen, He's drawing folks to Him. He said, and if I, even I, be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me, speaking of His death. But what we do every day, The word worship, oh, I like that. The word worship means to lift up the sacrifice. And every time that we worship God in this place, we are praising the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. You were talking about Isaiah. Have you noticed in Isaiah's writing, one through five read different than six through the rest of the book? Well something happened in six. See in one through five there was a whole lot of woe unto them, woe unto they, woe unto those. He was talking about a whole lot about that children of Israel and how awful they were until he saw the Lord high and lifted up. And here's what he said, woe is me. Woe is me. We got to quit looking around at our neighbor and saying, well, if they're going to heaven or if this one's going to make it, hey, we got to quit comparing. The Bible says in Corinthians, amen, it's not wise to compare yourself among yourselves. Amen. Hey, this church is not the standard. Jesus Christ is the standard. It's the one that we need to be lifting up and focusing upon. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, he quit talking about they and started talking about me. And in my life I did a whole lot of Josh looking around at other people in the church that I thought if they're going to heaven, so will I. Until the one day the Lord spoke to me and said, what if they don't go to heaven? We put a whole lot of faith in somebody that we don't have a whole lot of faith in, amen? I'm gonna repeat that, we put a whole lot of faith into somebody we don't have a whole lot of faith in. You say what, you're putting a lot of faith that they make it to heaven, but what if they don't? You've compared your whole life to sister so-and-so or brother so-and-so that may or may not even be saved. I've been around a lot of folks that they know how to church. They know how to church. And you know what? They're some of the best members you got. They're more faithful sometimes than those that are saved on their way to heaven. Why? Because church makes them feel good on the outside. But Jesus is talking about making a change on the inside. When he lifted up the Lord, when he lifted up his eyes and he began to say, woe is me, God began to show him things that he could have never imagined. Isaiah's writing. Isaiah's writing was more up-to-date than the New Testament, amen? I mean, he saw things that were unimaginable. Why? Because he got his eyes upon the Lord. I'm telling you this evening, if you'll get your eyes upon Him, if you'll devote your life unto Him, you will get to see things and be a part of things you never saw imaginable. But it has to start with, not a woe is they, not a woe is those, and not a woe is them. It has to start with, woe is me. Not only is that place that you go to a place where the Lord gets lifted up, it's a place where life is worth living. It's a place where life begins worth living. I don't know about you, but the day I got saved, I got a hold of something that was worth having. That absolutely the moment that I got a hold of the Lord, and I like, amen, I like that song, he came looking for me. Why? Because the Lord wasn't lost, amen, I was. found me amen he was in his rightful place where it was always supposed to me I was that lost sheep I was that lost coin I was that lost son that we read of in the book of Luke in the 15th chapter but there was one common denominator that that whole chapter is written about Amen, and it's found in two. The Bible says that they were amazed, amen, that He came to seek sinners, that Jesus came looking for sinners. And I'm thankful that there was a time in my life when He came looking for me. Because He gave me a life worth having. I don't stand in front of you tonight because I've got some kind of biblical scholarship. I don't come, I don't come here tonight because I went to some type of great Christian school or anything like that. I came here tonight, amen, preaching unto you because at a young age I devoted my life unto the Lord. I've made mistakes, I've fallen short, and I've had to beg my way back into His grace and His mercy. But I stand here tonight because He is great, not because I am. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians, amen, that we need to begin to look unto ourselves, amen. We need to realize, and such were some of you, amen, that we are all, we all come the same way. We were all lost and needed a Savior tonight. Here's what happens in our life, and I'll be finished. Ladies, if you'll get ready to come. Here's what happens in our life. We get saved, and then we get used to it. We get saved in our life and then we get used to it. And it becomes like everything else in our life. I, Tom, I just recently got this, these shoes I got on. I just got them back out of the closet. I realized something, there ain't nothing wrong with them. I just wanted a new pair. Amen. Hey, I'm going somewhere. I just realized I wanted a new pair. So what did I do? Well, I went to my wife and I said, these are wore out. I know she's watching tonight. These are wore out. She said, there ain't nothing wrong with them. I said, look at the toes of them. She said, they're just scuffed up. I said, nah, I'm gonna need a new pair. She said, whatever. I said, you got 1,500 pairs in the closet, let me get one more pair. Nah. in salvation, you know what happens sometimes? We get saved, and that's the number one thing in our life, until something else comes along that we want more. Jesus is number one in our life for a long time. Why? Because it, I mean, He's brand new, out of the box, and it feels good, until something comes along that catches our eye. I didn't get one pair, I got two. Better deal. I'll tell you tonight, if you're not careful, you'll begin to not only forget about the time, you'll forget about the place where change took place in your life. God pulled these out last week for me to remind me, amen, they're still just as good. We need to be reminded sometimes, hey, that salvation doesn't wear out, I mean it doesn't, It don't lose its savor. It doesn't lose its zeal. We do, but it does not. And every now and then we need to pull it back out. I'm talking about take your place, Elf, back to the place where God saved your soul and remind yourself of how good God is. Because if we don't get to a place in our life where we remember the place, We're liable to get to a place in our life where we forget the Savior, the person who made the difference. You sit here tonight with heads bowed and eyes closed as Tom gets ready to come, as we get ready to sing. I don't know your heart tonight. The wonderful thing about being an evangelist and not the pastor at the church is I can genuinely say tonight, I do not know your heart. There are folks in here that every time I come, they shake my hand, they give me a hug, I know their face, but I don't even know their name, I just know they go here. I'll see them out in public and I know, man, they went to Rock Salina, I know that, but I don't know your heart this evening. So you can't come in saying, well, that preacher, he knew I was lost, that's why he preached that message. No, God showed up tonight and wants to make a change and a difference in your life. So I encourage you tonight, if you're feeling that tug, I believe tonight that the light has shone from heaven in this place tonight that God has shown up here and we need to ask ourselves and ask the Lord this very thing Lord what will thou have me to do because maybe tonight in your life you need a place I don't need you to know what time it is I don't need to know what day it is I don't need you to know my name but you need to pick you out a spot on this altar and you need to create a place in your life where change enters your heart because I believe tonight he's that real he's that good and it can happen that fast but it's up to you this evening and as we